Once again, Kobe/Metta/Pau were all familiar with the Triangle offense. Ultimately, they ended up winning a championship together. Had I used the word "experts," I would have linked that directly to Kobe and Pau. Metta admitted the Triangle offense was difficult for him to consummately grasp. That's why Phil and Kobe would give him precise instructions on what to do and where to be, since that was the optimal way for Metta to learn. Here's a quote by Kobe regarding Metta: “He’s the kind of guy, if you give him specific, exact directions, he’ll follow them,” Bryant says. “But they have to be exact. But once you give them to him, he’ll follow them even if he has to run through a wall.” That didn't mean that Metta would perfect each play. Before Metta even played for the Lakers, the media doubted his ability to mesh with Kobe as well as successfully play within the Triangle. Phil made adjustments and made it work. They ultimately won a championship together.

I highly suggest you read Eleven Rings by Phil Jackson. It's an an autobiography that recollects all the events in Phil's life in a vivid, descriptive manner. I'm not saying read the entire book, but at least the sections where he reminisces about coaching the Lakers from ground bottom up. The man loved challenges. He connected with each and every player. He gave each player a book to read depending on their personality. Some received long books, while others often received shorter ones or simply quotes, depending on the individual's likeliness to read. One of his specialties was managing egos. If he could convince Michael Jordan to not worry about the scoring title and sacrifice his touches for the betterment of the team the very first year he coached MJ, there's no one else Phil couldn't manage. Before each game, everyone would sit in a dark room together and bond, think about their collective hard work, take deep breaths, et cetera. Coaching was more than simply X's and O's to Phil. He wanted to create a better, more stable environment for not only each player individually but the entirety of the team collectively.

We had talent. Kobe/MWP/Pau/Dwight was a highly talented team. Insert Nash into there whenever he was healthy. If Phil started coaching the team after the 9 games or so (including Bickerstaff interim), we would have ran a more stable, slow-paced offense. That means there would have been a LESSER chance of injuries. I shouldn't have to repeat what I wrote in my previous posts. MDA was running a lightening-pace offense with a team comprised of old legs. I don't think it's a coincidence that the two years MDA coached, our team has been plagued with a PLETHORA of major injuries. Morris/Meeks/Clark/Jamison/Sacre is not the deepest of benches. But the Lakers have never been the San Antonio Spurs. Phil maximized (not in terms of their complete potential but their role coming off the bench) Farmar/Vujacic/Luke/et cetera in the past. He could have made the bench solid. The last time we won our championship, our bench was ranked 28th.

I think WC confirmed that Dwight did not want to amnesty Kobe. Those were just rumors spread from the media. It's likely he wanted the team to himself and not want to wait. But he never requested to amnesty Kobe. I think Dwight would have a little bit of sense of what not to say. You ask why would they fire a coach for Dwight? Because that coach was Mike D'antoni. (They should not have even hired him in the first place. The management really couldn't have waited one more day to wait Phil's response?) MDA's stint with the Lakers led to losses, inability to manage egos, injuries, no defense...shall I go on? He's never even made it to the Finals. In the other thread, you mentioned how Dwight didn't respect or value Phil since he didn't respond to Phil's text messages about staying with the Lakers. The Lakers didn't hire the coach Dwight wanted. Coaching an entire season (which requires constant communication, an environment for familiarity to go, a test of intellectuality, et cetera) is far different than a text message telling Dwight to stay when the damage had already been done. Get real. Seriously.

There are obviously risks with trades. But between Dragic potentially leaving us vs. not having him at all...I think it's obvious which one is the one this franchise would go with. And if he did leave us, there could be a chance of a S&T. But bottom line is, we were able to acquire assets for equal/greater value than Pau at the time. It was a deal that should have been made. You trying to make ridiculous points to refute that is just plain foolish.

It's funny how you mention the Melo situation. In the Melo thread, you had lots of optimism and different viewpoints. I believe you quoted a Larry Coon tweet that mentioned how the Lakers/Knicks max situation isn't TOO big of a difference as people make it out to be. Besides, the marketing opportunities for Melo in Los Angeles would do wonders. You mentioned how the Lakers were straight to the point about offering the max without any "dancing around, BSing...and Melo knows that." And so on and so on. I'm not going to repeat what I wrote in my previous post. All the factors pointed to Melo potentially joining the Lakers and it didn't happen. It's hard to imagine other free agents joining us UNLESS Clarkson/Lin/Randle/Davis (or any other pieces shall we acquire) show lots of improvement or a blockbuster trade is miraculously made. Regarding Lance, it's sad to think the Lakers prestige and honor wasn't enough to at least attract a lower-tier free agent of his caliber (assuming the Lakers even offered him; there are conflicting reports now).

Many of your arguments consist of "There's no guarantee..." or "What if..." I'm not stating that Phil coaching us to a championship is a guarantee. I'm not saying Dragic does not leave the Lakers and we get nothing out of him (although Martin + Scola would still be enough assets)...to name a few of our discussion segments. But these are factors I would have gambled on. In one hand you could have had Phil (at least in a front office role) and a myriad of assets for our top players. In the other hand you end up with a severely injured Kobe, a question mark about our coaching, almost no top-level assets, et cetera. Now it's up to the FO to make smart, precise decisions. Clarkson/Randle/Lin/draft picks were great moves. We missed out on Lance. Hopefully we hire a smart coach and a capable starting SF. I'm going to be hopeful our team is highly competitive and convince FA to join us. We've made significant mistakes in the past...now let's right the ship.

"Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come."

Once again, Kobe/Metta/Pau were all familiar with the Triangle offense. Ultimately, they ended up winning a championship together. Had I used the word "experts," I would have linked that directly to Kobe and Pau. Metta admitted the Triangle offense was difficult for him to consummately grasp. That's why Phil and Kobe would give him precise instructions on what to do and where to be, since that was the optimal way for Metta to learn. Here's a quote by Kobe regarding Metta: “He’s the kind of guy, if you give him specific, exact directions, he’ll follow them,” Bryant says. “But they have to be exact. But once you give them to him, he’ll follow them even if he has to run through a wall.” That didn't mean that Metta would perfect each play. Before Metta even played for the Lakers, the media doubted his ability to mesh with Kobe as well as successfully play within the Triangle. Phil made adjustments and made it work. They ultimately won a championship together.

I highly suggest you read Eleven Rings by Phil Jackson. It's an an autobiography that recollects all the events in Phil's life in a vivid, descriptive manner. I'm not saying read the entire book, but at least the sections where he reminisces about coaching the Lakers from ground bottom up. The man loved challenges. He connected with each and every player. He gave each player a book to read depending on their personality. Some received long books, while others often received shorter ones or simply quotes, depending on the individual's likeliness to read. One of his specialties was managing egos. If he could convince Michael Jordan to not worry about the scoring title and sacrifice his touches for the betterment of the team the very first year he coached MJ, there's no one else Phil couldn't manage. Before each game, everyone would sit in a dark room together and bond, think about their collective hard work, take deep breaths, et cetera. Coaching was more than simply X's and O's to Phil. He wanted to create a better, more stable environment for not only each player individually but the entirety of the team collectively.

We had talent. Kobe/MWP/Pau/Dwight was a highly talented team. Insert Nash into there whenever he was healthy. If Phil started coaching the team after the 9 games or so (including Bickerstaff interim), we would have ran a more stable, slow-paced offense. That means there would have been a LESSER chance of injuries. I shouldn't have to repeat what I wrote in my previous posts. MDA was running a lightening-pace offense with a team comprised of old legs. I don't think it's a coincidence that the two years MDA coached, our team has been plagued with a PLETHORA of major injuries. Morris/Meeks/Clark/Jamison/Sacre is not the deepest of benches. But the Lakers have never been the San Antonio Spurs. Phil maximized (not in terms of their complete potential but their role coming off the bench) Farmar/Vujacic/Luke/et cetera in the past. He could have made the bench solid. The last time we won our championship, our bench was ranked 28th.

I think WC confirmed that Dwight did not want to amnesty Kobe. Those were just rumors spread from the media. It's likely he wanted the team to himself and not want to wait. But he never requested to amnesty Kobe. I think Dwight would have a little bit of sense of what not to say. You ask why would they fire a coach for Dwight? Because that coach was Mike D'antoni. (They should not have even hired him in the first place. The management really couldn't have waited one more day to wait Phil's response?) MDA's stint with the Lakers led to losses, inability to manage egos, injuries, no defense...shall I go on? He's never even made it to the Finals. In the other thread, you mentioned how Dwight didn't respect or value Phil since he didn't respond to Phil's text messages about staying with the Lakers. The Lakers didn't hire the coach Dwight wanted. Coaching an entire season (which requires constant communication, an environment for familiarity to go, a test of intellectuality, et cetera) is far different than a text message telling Dwight to stay when the damage had already been done. Get real. Seriously.

There are obviously risks with trades. But between Dragic potentially leaving us vs. not having him at all...I think it's obvious which one is the one this franchise would go with. And if he did leave us, there could be a chance of a S&T. But bottom line is, we were able to acquire assets for equal/greater value than Pau at the time. It was a deal that should have been made. You trying to make ridiculous points to refute that is just plain foolish.

It's funny how you mention the Melo situation. In the Melo thread, you had lots of optimism and different viewpoints. I believe you quoted a Larry Coon tweet that mentioned how the Lakers/Knicks max situation isn't TOO big of a difference as people make it out to be. Besides, the marketing opportunities for Melo in Los Angeles would do wonders. You mentioned how the Lakers were straight to the point about offering the max without any "dancing around, BSing...and Melo knows that." And so on and so on. I'm not going to repeat what I wrote in my previous post. All the factors pointed to Melo potentially joining the Lakers and it didn't happen. It's hard to imagine other free agents joining us UNLESS Clarkson/Lin/Randle/Davis (or any other pieces shall we acquire) show lots of improvement or a blockbuster trade is miraculously made. Regarding Lance, it's sad to think the Lakers prestige and honor wasn't enough to at least attract a lower-tier free agent of his caliber (assuming the Lakers even offered him; there are conflicting reports now).

Many of your arguments consist of "There's no guarantee..." or "What if..." I'm not stating that Phil coaching us to a championship is a guarantee. I'm not saying Dragic does not leave the Lakers and we get nothing out of him (although Martin + Scola would still be enough assets)...to name a few of our discussion segments. But these are factors I would have gambled on. In one hand you could have had Phil (at least in a front office role) and a myriad of assets for our top players. In the other hand you end up with a severely injured Kobe, a question mark about our coaching, almost no top-level assets, et cetera. Now it's up to the FO to make smart, precise decisions. Clarkson/Randle/Lin/draft picks were great moves. We missed out on Lance. Hopefully we hire a smart coach and a capable starting SF. I'm going to be hopeful our team is highly competitive and convince FA to join us. We've made significant mistakes in the past...now let's right the ship.

Once again, Kobe/Metta/Pau were all familiar with the Triangle offense. Ultimately, they ended up winning a championship together. Had I used the word "experts," I would have linked that directly to Kobe and Pau. Metta admitted the Triangle offense was difficult for him to consummately grasp. That's why Phil and Kobe would give him precise instructions on what to do and where to be, since that was the optimal way for Metta to learn. Here's a quote by Kobe regarding Metta: “He’s the kind of guy, if you give him specific, exact directions, he’ll follow them,” Bryant says. “But they have to be exact. But once you give them to him, he’ll follow them even if he has to run through a wall.” That didn't mean that Metta would perfect each play. Before Metta even played for the Lakers, the media doubted his ability to mesh with Kobe as well as successfully play within the Triangle. Phil made adjustments and made it work. They ultimately won a championship together.

We won a championship together because Pau was the best big man in the game and Kobe was still the best player in the game at the end of his prime and Metta was one of the best defenders in the league.

Kobe still had to bail us out of many games that year, Boston still took us 7, and the Suns almost took us 7.

And at that point Gasol was no longer a 2nd option, Kobe was top 3 still, but Metta wasn't as dependable defensively anymore.

You are still confusing their effectiveness being the same in 2012 as it was in 2010 when both Metta AND Pau fell off significantly.

Metta didn't understand the triangle, you had to give him specific instructions and at times he didn't follow them, Phil even referenced that a lot this year that sometimes Metta is just off doing his own thing, and Metta always said everything would work out just to keep playing.

We could get away with it in 2010, we couldn't get away with it in 2012.

Also that's just then. You still had Dwight unwilling to commit to the pick and roll which even Bynum conformed to. You had Dwight still trying to prove he was a force in the post up, which he barely had enough strength or timing to execute and his body was still going through the pains .

ALSO on top of that Duhon and Morris would have been our best backup options, and Jamison was done by that point.

No matter how many ways you try to slice it Houston still looks like the better option for Dwight and with a style closer to what he's used to playing. The circumstances just weren't in our favor from the moment he'd have come in. Would have been the worst possible situation. Injuries, no time to adjust to the new system, only 2 players understanding the system everyone else needing instructions.

Like I said, Phil can't make it work without the talent. A done Jamison is your 3rd or 4th best player. That tells you how devoid of talent that Lakers team was outside of Dwight and Kobe and it took Dwight till the end of the season to finally be himself and by then both Blake and Nash were stinging from their injuries. It's just a factor of it wouldn't have worked and the sad thing is Kobe would have still probably have had to play 40 mins a game to win us games.

And all the X's and O's and autobiographies he wrote doesn't change what was already set before he even came.

We had talent. Kobe/MWP/Pau/Dwight was a highly talented team. Insert Nash into there whenever he was healthy. If Phil started coaching the team after the 9 games or so (including Bickerstaff interim), we would have ran a more stable, slow-paced offense. That means there would have been a LESSER chance of injuries. I shouldn't have to repeat what I wrote in my previous posts. MDA was running a lightening-pace offense with a team comprised of old legs.

That really doesn't matter Clutch. Blake and Nash were already dealing with injury regardless of the pace. Nash was only at pace for about a month from the middle of december till the middle of january before we relegated him to off ball shooter.

The problem was Nash was already fargone by the time he came back and he wouldn't have made it to the end of the season regardless as the writing was already on the wall as far as his nerve damage went. He went as far as he could have and even in the "slower paced triangle system" he likely would have still not made it to the end of the season as his problems were that the injury with lillard screwed him over. Blake's injuries also were going to be catching up to him.

The only thing that probably changes is that Kobe may not injure his achillies but at the same time Kobe would have still had to carry this team as Phil was NOT beyond playing Kobe 40 minutes a night when it came to winning.

And our injuries to guys like Blake and Nash which were already in place and flaring before Phil would have gotten here were the reason, along with the unreliableness of Jodie Meeks and Howard not being all the way back as well as his body betraying him because it wasn't fully recovered.

It's a very realistic proposition that Kobe would have still had to carry this team with or without Phil. And the two months it took us to learn whatever the heck D'antoni's system was before we threw it out is probably about as long as it'd have taken us to learn the triangle.

And let's assume we go on a 70% winning clip to end the season too because of it. Nash and Blake are still carrying injuries and problems they sustained earlier in the season prior. Meeks is still unreliable, Jamison is still done, Pau is still dealing with what he was dealing with and it was still a catastrophe.

And what we'd all have been saying was "Give Phil a training camp and a healthy roster and he can set this right."

And guess what.. the Rockets still would have been looking like the better situation, with the younger talent, and a coach, and system that would have given Dwight what he wanted and was more familiar to.

ALSO remember the fact that Dwight loves to be catered to and Phil was a "take no BS" kind of coach, the kind of coach that punched Pau in the chest and told him to man up. How do you think mental midget Dwight would have responded to being challenged?

You think Dwight couldn't deal with Kobe? Phil was just as much of an [expletive] hole. He told Shaq straight up to his face what he'd better master or he wasn't going to be here. yeah. Dwight eventually couldn't take Stan Van Gundy's no nonsense coaching attitude, and felt 'betrayed' when SVG said what he said to the media about Dwight doing behind the scenes things at least that season.

One would imagine what Dwight would do with Phil and his 'zen'ing his players through the media approach, particularly with Dwight. I doubt he'd appreciate Phil [expletive]ing with him. Nor do I think he could deal with it.

All the other stuff is just a rehash of stuff we've already debated back and forth with the trading and all the other stuff what if's maybe's and could be's which I've already addressed and as it's your "last" response there's no reason to reply to the rest of it outside of PMs.

I love Pau but he never the best big man in the game. He became a household name b/c he played with the Lakers. If LA gets KG in 2007 Im positive they achieve the same result and Pau is just the really good and skilled Spanish guy on a losing team.

"Blake and Parker are good at canceling each other out till our bench point guard comes in" - Majesty aka Bird Ish (12/4/13)